This is for the birders who love to read about a success story! (Plains Wanderer, Ground Parrot and Superb Parrot)

Let me start off by saying Ross is a good birder. He wouldn’t be where he is now if skill wasn’t involved. But I think what makes him a better* birder than most is that he is also willing to put in hard work. Sometimes crazy amounts of hard work. Amounts of hard work that seem more like torture than anything else. Skill can only take you so far when it comes to tracking down secretive, elusive, sulky, critically endangered, range restricted endemics. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, Ross’s bird watching stamina is next level. Only a handful of people in this world could go hardcore birding every single day of their lives and not get sick, tired, bored of it or want to quit. Ross is one of those hardcore birders. I joke that he enjoys a dose of misery with his birds. But in all reality, birdwatching is more than an activity to him, it’s his way of life.
I say all of that just to say, there are birds in this world that you simply are not going to see unless you have a healthy dose of perseverance, resolve, and perhaps a high tolerance of misery to offer up.

Plains-wanderer is one of the hardest birds in all of Australia. It’s a small, odd, quail-like bird that runs around on the ground that is more closely related to the seedsnipe of South America than anything else in Australia. (South America is very far away from Australia in case you’ve forgotten.) It’s such a strange little bird that Plains-wanderer is put into a family all by itself. The best way to see one of these sulky, secretive, elusive, critically endangered, ground dwelling birds is to go out at night with a flashlight and hope that you might be able to spot one sleeping. These birds require native grasslands that fit a very specific description and if the grass gets either too tall or too damaged the bird will simply leave. They are extremely picky when it comes to habitat and they are very skilled at hiding in the tuffs of grass of their preferred terrain.
To put the difficulty level of this bird in perspective, there is a guide in Australia who charges $900 just to go out and see this one bird. The bird is hard enough that people are willing to shell out big money. And because it’s the sole member of a family, big listers really want to see it. (Seeing all of the bird families of the world, all 249 of them, is a bucket list item for many birders!) I’m not knocking Phil for charging that price because if people will pay $900 and he can make good money, good for him. It’s supply and demand. There’s definitely a demand. We just aren’t the type to pay that price.
I say “we” here but we all know it is Ross that is going to do the hard work and it is Ross who just loves finding his own birds.

On the evening of July 9th 2023, Ross left me and Roger in the hotel so he could go out in search of Plains-wanderer. I genuinely wonder just how many foreigners have shown up on a trip to Australia and found a Plains-wanderer all by themselves. Surely not many. Most people take a guide for this bird — it’s long been thought to be “the only way.” Despite knowing how hard it would be, Ross went out looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack all by himself.

He started his search in a paddock where his friend, Josh, told him it was seen 8 months ago. It was at least a good place to start. Unfortunately the area had gotten too much rain and grass had started growing everywhere and the area no longer looked suitable for Plains-wanderer. Plains-wanderer need habitat that is 50% dirt and 50% native grass no higher than 30cm (preferably 20cm). Like I said before, they are extremely picky about their paddocks. If the paddock the bird was last seen in wasn’t going to work out, Ross was back to square one. While Roger and I were in the hotel sleeping, Ross was out wandering fields. I have to wonder if this is why Plains-wanderer got it’s name. Perhaps it’s not the bird but the birder that is wandering?
Ross walked and walked and walked. He put in 13 kilometers (8 miles) alone, in the cold, in the dark. To make matters worse, it had recently rained and the small dirt tracks he drove between became very treacherous due to the new mud. Again, I wasn’t there but I can picture the rental car sliding around as he lost traction and drove on anyway. “Off roading” is a sport to some but again, it takes a special kind of crazy to go out and do this alone in the dark. Without rain these roads would be no big deal but when they become wet it’s a whole different game. Might as well add traversing treacherous roads into the mix while in pursuit of one of the hardest birds in all of Australia. The last message I got from Ross before falling asleep was “if I don’t make it back to the hotel tonight, don’t worry. I’m stuck in the mud and I’ll sleep in the car. I’ll figure out how to get unstuck in the morning.” I’m not sure how many wives would just shrug it off, but I’ve been married to the guy long enough to know he’s out doing what he does so I fell asleep. Ross might be out there hazing himself, but I think he secretively loves it. (Although I did ask him when he got back, ‘did you have fun’ and he said no.)

Anyway, he walked around in the cold, wet grass in search of his target for the next 7 hours straight. It was only 43°F (6°C) with a mist in the air. (!!!) In those conditions I would have given up after just 20 minutes I’m sure. Red-chested Buttonquail holds the distinction of being the very first bird he spotted that night but after that it was nothing but Stubble Quail. Stubble Quail apparently are loving all of the rain and the new grass it brings and Ross flushed over 300 STQU throughout the course of his quest but no trace of Plains-wanderer. Finally, at 2AM, he was ready to admit defeat. He marched back to the car that he had parked on the side of a dirt track. If you’ve never walked through sticky mud, do not underestimate just how much mud can find itself attached to your footwear and the tires of the car were sporting their own seven layers of mud frosting. Ross paused to knock the mud off.

One other thing to note about Plains-wanderer is they are notoriously hard to flush. They are so good at running away that they much prefer to go that route. They will run away and hide before you ever even knew they were there. Only rarely will they fly. I made all that fuss about skill and perseverance but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that a little bit of luck goes a long way. Lucky for Ross he picked just the right spot to park his car that night and as he stood there knocking mud off his boots he heard a bird flush. (I probably would fly away too if some crazy guy was cursing under his breath and making the loud sounds involved in getting mud off of his boots.) Ross heard the bird flush and thought to himself that the sound of the wings flying away sounded different than anything else he had heard that night. He knew deep down he needed to locate that bird. After flushing so many Stubble Quail, he recognized a difference in the way the wings sounded so he tracked down the bird and there she was, a subadult female Plains-wanderer!
Suddenly his skill and perseverance paid off! I got to benefit directly from his hard work and the following night he took me back to the same spot and relocated the bird in 5 minutes! Someone said to Ross, “maybe Melissa has figured this whole twitching thing out.” You know what, maybe I have.

The kind of tenacity that allowed Ross to find his own Plains-wanderer is also what made him successful when it came to finding and seeing Ground Parrot, a bird I swiftly dipped along the way because I simply did not have it in me to walk around in the wind and cold. (And while I don’t love walking around in the wind and cold, let me be clear, someone had to stay behind and care for baby Roger. Subjecting an innocent being to no sleep, wind, and cold isn’t exactly fair. So I stayed behind with Roger once again.) Ross tells me that this is a bird blog and the birders who read the blog enjoy hearing some of the bird stories, so while I’m on the topic of telling stories about how Ross has more will power than I do, let me tell the story of how I missed both Ground Parrot and Superb Parrot but he did not.

Ground Parrot is a difficult bird to see because, as its name might suggest, it is a small, green parrot that lives on the ground. Better yet, on the ground amongst thick grass. They can be extremely hard to get a good look at. Ground Parrot can be found in at Barren Grounds Nature Reserve, which is where we initially searched for them, but they can also be found elsewhere and after an absolutely miserable morning walking around the Barren Grounds in gnarly wind and seeing almost nothing, the only highlight being Beautiful Firetail, Ross realized he would need to do something more if he actually wanted to see Ground Parrot. He had already put in an entire morning and walked over 7 miles (12km) and came up without so much as a trace of Ground Parrot at the Barren Grounds. This was a morning I skipped out on altogether and Ross came back to the hotel to report that the only thing I missed was making myself miserable and watching him slip directly on a rock and injure his knee. (He came back with a seriously banged up knee that needed some attention. See, sitting out an event can *sometimes* be a good idea!)

Ross had made a few inquiries to local birders to see about birding other locations and found out that Beecroft, an active Army Base, would be open during the winter holiday break and it just so happened to be during winter holiday break! This location is an active live fire range, only open to the public on select weekends and holidays. Due to being an active range, much of the Ground Parrot habitat is still off limits to walking, but it is a great place for the bird to be found. But heres the kicker: Beecroft was 1.5 hours away from where we had booked our hotel and being the middle of winter, daylight hours were limited. Would it be worth driving 3 hours roundtrip for only 40 minutes of birding before dark? I think we all know Ross’s answer to that question. Once again he left me and Roger at the hotel a mere hour after getting back from an early morning haze-fest in the Barren Grounds so he could be at this new location by dusk. Crazy birders like Ross never rest. He walked along the dirt track and heard the distinct call of two Ground Parrots. As he stood off staring into the sunset, he got to watch as a single bird flew from one spot to another, landed and sang. Lucky for him it flew directly beside him because it was getting quite dark!

Because of this success, he decided we should all return to Beecroft for the morning so we woke up at the ungodly hour of 3AM so we could be there by first light. These are birds that only call early morning or just before dark. Outside of that range you are unlikely to hear them and therefore unlikely to know where to look. Unfortunately we weren’t as lucky as Ross was the night before because even though we heard the birds call from the same spot Ross had them the night before, we never saw them fly. I did identify their call all by myself so I’m willing to count these birds as a “heard-only” but that’s definitely not as much fun! (No photo of the ground parrot so here’s a kangaroo and some Superb Lyretails.)

Superb Parrot isn’t a hard bird to see at all. The only reason that Superb Parrot is making the cut for “good birds that Ross saw because he’s a good birder” is because Superb Parrot is migratory and simply was not around this time of year because it had moved slightly north. Had we known that these birds were migratory, we would have looked for them elsewhere and probably had them easily but we didn’t know this little fact while we were in Sydney and we had already moved south. In this particular case we had made things harder for ourselves. When everyone gets the bird in Wangaratta you might think that you will get it there too (the past two years there were lots of sightings in July in Wangaratta due to the ironwoods blooming and Ross didn’t realize during his planning that that wasn’t always the case). As we drove around in search of parrots at all of their summertime haunts with not even a trace, we wondered what was up. This is when we did a bit more research and found out these birds weren’t around. When you are planning a big cross-country trip such as this, small details like where to see Superb Parrot in winter can be easy to miss, especially for “easy” birds. Although most are gone at this time of year, a few due hang around and we spent a day around Wangaratta and an afternoon near Murray Valley National Park searching for the parrot without success. I had given up, but Ross wanted to give it one more shot the next morning. He drove the 1.5 hours back to Wangaratta before light and started his search. There had been a sighting of a few Superb Parrots only a few weeks earlier so he had some hope. The ironwoods around town weren’t blooming so he switched up his search strategy, heading to the paddocks to see if any where feeding in the fields. After cross searching a number of fields he had almost given up when he noticed a slender winged longer tailed parrot flying across an open field. Superb Parrot! He jumped out of the car and managed a few terrible (yet identifiable) shots of the bird as it continued on its way. Not the best experience, but he was happy to have tracked down the bird at a difficult time of year and avoid a trip dip.

*Note: there are plenty of hardcore birders out there just as dedicated to the field as Ross. I know this because he’s friends with half of them. I’m just his doting wife who can write down all the braggadocious things he absolutely would never say himself. Love youuuuu, Ross.

This birding occurred on the 7th, 10th, and 11th of July 2023.
Here’s an eBird checklist from Plains-wanderer, Ground Parrot, and Superb Parrot.